Instruction Manual for Jason

This episode of the Truth includes strong language. The Truth. Instruction manual for Jason. Read thoroughly before attempting operation. With proper care and handling, Jason can be expected to thrive as a partner, father, colleague, and friend. Maintenance for A. Sleep. Jason is particularly sensitive to the negative REM effects of snoozing his alarm. Good morning. Not good. But there are several ways to break him of this habit. Come on, babe. Get up. Ten more minutes. Okay. Option one. Entice him into a shower. I guess I'll just shower by myself. I'm up. I'm up. Option two. Good morning, sleepy head. Uh-huh. Tickle him. Oh, God. No. Oh, my God. J. Stop. Stop. I don't use no. Oh, no. Oh, it's a hurt. No, it's a dead. Option three. Rise and shine. No. Scare him. Oh, my God. What? What? What is it? What is it, Jen? Sorry. I thought I saw him house. How about I make some coffee? With 20 days of habit, Jason's internal clock will adjust, and his wake-up time will become routine. Morning. Hey, I'm making breakfast. Do you want pancakes? Oh, yes, please. If used correctly, this guide will direct Jason in whichever way you choose. And remember, when in doubt, utilize dark chocolate. I swear, Jen, you're a miracle worker. No. I'm serious. This time last year, Jason was showing up at our house at 3 a.m. He'd wake up the kids and either fall asleep on the couch or try to coax Kevin here into a weekend of debauchery. Debachi? Wow. Just being dramatic, we were just getting a little buzz. I am not. Mom, mommy, you watching? I'm watching sweetheart. Jen, Jen, are you watching? I'm watching, Jason. Okay, but seriously, Jen? What's your secret? Well, I have this instruction manual that tells me exactly what to do to get Jason to do anything I want. What did that be? Something. I need one for Kevin. Excuse me? We have these bunk beds for Connie. I've been bugging him to put together for weeks now. He's going to get around to it. Who asked you to buy a 500-piece bunk bed? Now who's dramatic? It's 30 max. It was 30 minimum. How's everyone doing over here? Never thought I'd say this, Jason, but watching you play with my kid in that pool has me wondering if I married the right brother. Okay, Liz, I think it's time for you to lay off the margaritas. You can say that again. Jay, say, think maybe we should go? I have that early morning, remember? Oh, no. You can't leave yet. I swear to God, I'm just about done untangling this volleyball net. That sounds fun, but we really have to go. We were supposed to leave after cake, remember, an hour ago. But Uncle Jason's on my team. I did say it'd be on her team. Please? Here, it's five minutes no untangle. Ten to set up or plan. This is no time. One hour, tops. Yeah, great. I'm going to go to the bathroom. Be right back. See, how to get Jason to leave a party early? People are so complicated. And all of us are different. Sometimes it feels like life would be so much simpler if each of us just came with our own instruction manual. Something that explains how we think, how we work, but motivates us, what makes us easier to get along with. I'm Jonathan Mitchell. This is the truth. And this story is about a young woman who has an instruction manual for her boyfriend. And now back to instruction manual for Jason. A work party, no happy hour. An outdoor event with family under 50. Jason will be inclined to stay until sunset, or until a conflict over which Marvel superhero is the strongest occurs. Easy. You find it OK? Yeah, not my first time. There we go. Only one tangle left and we're playing volleyball. Lovely. So Connie's getting to be such a great swimmer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And getting pretty strong too. Almost as strong as the Hulk. Of the monster? Yeah. I only meant he's really strong. The Hulk is like the strongest superhero or something. Jason? He's the strongest. It's debatable. It's OK. Well, it's him or Thor. He'll hear me out. Spider-Man. The little British guy? There's absolutely no way Spider-Man is as strong as the Hulk. Actually, yes he is. That's the dumbest thing you've ever sent me. OK, Kev. It's actually a well-known fact that most of the time Peter Parker is fighting, he's pulling his punches, so it's not absolutely annihilate everyone that comes across. Everybody knows him. OK, well, why would he do that if he's fighting back guys? See how that doesn't make sense? Because he's a good guy. There are so many times Spider-Man barely wins. Sorry, Liz, I need to set them off. Why is that yelling? Because Daddy is a nerd. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that. It's more complicated than that. The Hulk can break a planet. You know who I like? Chris Evans. He's from Massachusetts? You don't even read the comics. I've seen the movies. Guys? The movies are not the comics. They are not the same thing. Fuck you. What do you like the King of Comics now? Kevin, don't swear in front of the-- Fuck you. A conny. Go jump to the pool. All right. Who wants our cake? Fuck that cake. Don't you dare tell my wife-- Fuck that cake. I want you to fuck that cake. God. Come on, we're going. Let's get out of here, babe. You say so. Happy birthday, Liz. God, Kevin is such an asshole. Yeah. I'm sorry. I completely ruined this day. No, no. You didn't. I was ready to go. It's just like he picked the one thing to really get under my skin. Yeah. Although I do think maybe that was a bigger reaction than I'd expected. They're taking his side? What? No. Absolutely not. I'm just surprised at how explosive that was. Because he's an asshole. Yeah, I'm just-- I just feel kind of bad I brought it up. No, babe. No, no, no, no. Don't-- don't feel bad. It is not your fault at all. It's because he's an asshole. How to get Jason to forgive someone. Generate a reason for teamwork between Jason and the subject of his anger, a common goal or project. And when in doubt, increase the project's urgency. Well, well, well, isn't it, Jen? Hey, how's it going? Fun party the other day. Yeah, super fun. You call into apologize for my dumb brother. No, I was calling to see if he had time to come help us with something. Is everything wrong? Nothing major. I just think something's wrong with the oven. I was using it. It kind of smells gassy. So-- That's not good. No, I know. So I was like, let me call. Kevin, he's the girl master of the family. And Liz says you're so handy. So I thought-- Yeah, yeah. Well, Jason's on his way, but maybe you and him could look at it together. Sure, yeah, yeah. I'm over there in like 20 minutes. Yes, thank you. I got a lot of grease in your oven, man. You got to clean the shit out. Dude, I can't see where you're pointing. Can I check it out? Be my guest. Hey, guys. How's it going? It looks fine to me. I mean, it's probably just need to reset the pilot light, relight the pilot light. I mean, only once for sure there's no gas smell anymore, obviously. OK. Does anyone smell any gas? No. Great. Then maybe you two should do that together. It's not really a two person job, Jen. You turn the knob and you light the whole. Well, that's not it. I mean, depending where your pilot light hole is, sometimes they're in the back behind the broiler drawer. I know where my light hole is, OK? All right, dude. You know where the hole is. First time for everything. Shut the fuck up. What? OK, come on. Stop it. It must be working together. I always know where the holes are. All right, and in fact, I'm looking at a huge hole right now. Oh, wow. Was that like a fancy way of calling me an asshole, Jason? You learn that from reading all your little comic books? Comic books aren't fancy. Are you cracked? It's dude. Calm down. I came over here because Jen asked me to, all right? Clearly she doesn't trust you to know where the holes are. I'm in the best shape of my life, man. I'll kick your ass. You want to go? Let's get back to the office. Are you strong as spider, man? As far as your concern, I might as well be a strong spider. Out of my face, man. I can't believe you're someone's fucking dad. Poor fucking kid. You know what? How about I light it? I just turned this in light, right? Right. She was talking to me. Oh no, the grease. What the fuck up? Shut the fuck up. Jason? What? What? The oven's on fire. Oh. Put it out. Oh, shit. Oh my god. I'm so convinced of how the light are too close to the grease. OK, where's your fireworks thing? I don't have a fire extinguisher. Shit. This is bigger than I thought. Why don't you have a fire extinguisher? No, Jen, don't put water on it. It's a grease fire. No, he's right. Don't do that. Call the fire department. Kev, help me close the windows. Yeah. Shit. Jen, call the fire department. We gotta go. Yeah, let's go. We gotta get out of here now. My God. I cannot believe you set your house on fire, dude. Thanks for all your help in there. That's what brothers are for. Jen, you okay? Jen? Yeah. How to help Jason deal with the loss of his family? Friends. Home. Take him to a safe, clean place, preferably in an area he's familiar with and present it as a special occasion or adventure. Whoa. This is so nice. We never stay in hotels. I still say we should have stayed with Kevin. I mean, hotel costs on top of everything else. We deserve a reward after all that chaos. Here we have room service, a pool. Ooh, we have a very soft bed. When life gives you lemons. You make the best of it. Great, close. Well, it's more than that. It's like, let's call it a couple's vacation. It's exciting. Yay. Okay, psycho. I'll play along. Vacation, right? Revecation mode. Okay, maybe I'll go for a swim. Ooh, look at you. I packed your suit in the back. I was thinking. [SIGHS] You know, if I had to have my apartment catch fire, I'm really glad I caught fire with you. Back at you. Okay, I'll see you in 50 laps. Okay. How to make this up to him. One settled, put Jason Moore at ease with certain familiar comforts, such as M&Ms, Diet Sprite, Funnians, Funnians. I can do that. Time for a quick trip to the vending machine. Turns out the pool closed 10 minutes ago, so it's. Jen? Hmm. What Jason Moore at ease? Hmm. Jason has a deep-seated discomfort with refrigerator magnets. Cannot, under any circumstances, be convinced to close cabinets after. What is this book? What the fuck? Warning. If Jason finds this book, he will not like it. No kidding. No kidding, he'll say. [SCREAMS] And likely throw it on the ground in fear. Holy sh-- Jason, you're back already. What are you? Oh no. I got Funnians. And we'll find out what happens next in just a moment. But first, we want to tell you about some folks who helped make this show possible. What is this? Where. Where. You're supposed to be swimming. What is this, Jen? It's a book. A book about me? Yeah. It helps me. Where did you get this? Okay. Shit. It's like. Hmm. You know, it's like a service. And I sent them information. And they use, like, psychology and the internet. Cross references your online presence with something. I. It's a relationship tool. Do you want some M&Ms? They're dark chocolate. Just order this. And they just sent it to you. It's so. It's so detailed, Jen. I mean, all the back pain tips you've given me, the food you've been cooking, I mean, even the stuff we do together, that's an error. It's just so. So creepy. It's so creepy, Jen. It's not that creepy. This diagram is exactly how our bedroom is set up. It's just a guide. It's just a guide. Jesus. How long have you been using this, honey? You know, has it been the whole time that you've needed a guide to our relationship? I got it. I got it about a month after we moved in together. Why? Because. Why? Please, come on. It's fair question. Please don't yell. Look, you're so. I love you, but we were bickering all the time. It was like, you're so sad. Remember? And I can't get you to do anything. Not every minute, not all the time, but. You're generally kind of unhappy. You don't like your job. You don't like our apartment. You don't even like the way Reddit reacts to John Wick or something. And it. I can't. I can't do anything to make it better. I can't say anything right. I can't do anything right now. God forbid I asked you to think about me for a second. Yeah, okay, so this is my fault. Is what you're telling me? No. I did this. No, it's just. We had put so much into this and I just knew it could be good. But. I needed. I don't know. I needed guidance on how to make it good. And then I found out about it and I wanted to try it. I wanted to try it for us. Oh, for us? No. Just. Okay, fine. Honestly, what's so wrong about me using this? Isn't this all any relationship is? Learning about someone while you help them and use them at the same time? That is such a psycho way of thinking. Oh, I got stopped saying psycho. You say psycho so much. Was that according to you or the book? According to your mom and her friend, get over yourself. What do you think you get a veggie burger every time your brother grows? Is because he's a psycho? No, it's because he's learned information about you. Look at your life, Jason. Don't you think it's better than a few months ago? It's because of this book. Can't you just take the win? No, I can't. Why not? Jen, come on. Are you serious? If I did something like this to you and you found out you would honestly be okay with it? I don't know. I can't actually imagine someone caring about me enough to bother. Oh, God, is there a pittie tactic in here that I missed? No, Jason. It's just the truth. This isn't caring, Jen. This is controlling. This is so cool. No, it's not. An intuitive and independent problem solver with a very individualistic nature with a lower than standard optimal room temperature preference of 71 degrees. It's so accurate. That is not accurate. But look, I'll turn the fan off. Can you just stop reading that? We're supposed to be building these bunk beds right now. Look up if there's something in here that makes you chill. Oh, my God, it's here. Section five, to calm agitated Jason. Stop reading, Jason. Stop reading. Just hand me those screws. Okay. No, not those ones, the bigger ones. Which, what are they called? Which, what are literally just pictures? Look, it just says "Middle bunk bed" and then it shows images. Okay. These ones bigger. These? Not the bigger ones. Okay, sorry. These are the huge ones. Yeah, the thick ones. How could you not want to read it? I mean, look at this chart. Quick tips for troubleshooting common Jason issues. Fault. Jason is catastrophizing his day. Potential cause. Thirst. Do you need some water right now? Just give me that. Just give me that. Where did she get this? I need this. I need one for Liz. That's fucked. Dude, you've never been married. Knock knock. Hey, babe. Hey, Liz. Liz. Sorry to interrupt. I wanted to check on the progress. Connie is really excited. No, I'm not. Sweetie, you're gonna love it. I hate bump beds. No, you don't. So. Progress report? We're almost done. It's, we're super close. Sorry. I've been distracting him. Take your time. I know you're going through a hard time right now, Chase. But we'll be done super soon. I'd really love if it was done by bedtime. I told you. It will be. And that's great. Connie, finish cleaning your toys. No. Right now. No. Seriously, can you find out where Jen got this? Dude, let's just get this over with. I want to try and swim before it gets too late. You know, sometimes I feel like you only see me for my pool, man. What does it say about that in the manual? Oh. Hey, Liz. I didn't know you're out here. Yep. Here I am. I was just going to go for a swim. It's a nice night for it. It didn't nice, smoked. Officially, I don't. Ah, okay. Yeah. Oh, is it the necklace you got for your birthday? This is the necklace I got for my birthday. Nice. It is nice. Thank you so much for helping out today. It really was a big help. Oh, no problem. You know, I'm sorry I'm back in your hair again, by the way. Break up really, really threw me for a loop. Plus the fire. God, I keep forgetting about that part. Yeah, you guys are definitely breaking up. Definitely. I mean, I assume you heard about the manual. Can I read it? No, that's not a thing. Is there a chapter on getting Jason to find his own place? Oh, Liz. Funny. I wanted a bathrobe. What? For my birthday? As you may or may not have noticed, I run cold and I wanted a bathrobe. Something cozy and long that matched my slippers. Something I could throw on before I went outside to not smoke. Isn't your anniversary coming up? I mean, I can drop Kevin in. Oh, he knew. He asked me weeks ago what I wanted and I said a bathrobe that's cozy and long and matches my slippers. He asked me to write it down. So I wrote it down. He asked me to send him some links to examples. I sent him some links to examples. Then, for some reason, it's my birthday. No bathrobe. It's a really nice necklace. Yeah. It's certainly nothing to complain about. But I don't know. A lot of people have instructions on how to treat each other, Jason. Not everybody bothers to use them. Jen? Hi. What are you doing here? You're sitting on the floor. Yeah. Sometimes I sit on the floor when I'm sad. I find it grounding. Interesting. I wasn't expecting you to come back. Wow, you're just really lost without that manual, huh? [Sigh] Oh, we finally finished putting those bunk beds together for Connie. Okay. You mind if I join you? It's not good for your back here. We can sit on the bed. No, this only take a few minutes. So, turns out, Connie hated the bunk bed. Oh, okay, thank you for telling me. So, we took it apart and we made it into this L-shaped monstrosity that takes up about half her room. She's calling it "megabet." I'm sorry, she likes it, I guess. And it got me thinking, I think I really hate the idea of someone trying to force me into being a bunk bed. Even if it's with science or the manual says I am. Right. Like, maybe I have all the pieces for a bunk bed. I don't know, but that doesn't mean I'm just going to be a bunk bed, you know? And I definitely don't want to get tricked into being a bunk bed just because some psychic, some insane book says I should be. This is an analogy. Yes, it is. Okay, I'm following, I think. I really do appreciate that you want to build something with me. But I want to be more of a co-builder in less of a project. I never wanted you to be like my project or my bunk bed. I just wanted you to be happier. And I guess sometimes I wanted to leave a party without having to ask 15 times. Likes to leave parties early. Only sometimes. What times exactly would that be? I don't know. When you're in laws or one glass too many and bickering, what are you doing? Starting your manual. Really? And how does it make you feel? Intrigt. Gen-fiance behavior tracking, intriguing. No, possible cause for concern there. How long are you going to be doing this for? A while, I think. What's your reaction to that? We should probably order room service. Okay, use this food as a calming activity or maybe as a distraction. All right. What do you want to eat? What do you want? We can get things we both want. No, tonight I need to experience your preferences so I can fully understand them. It is crucial to my research. Please, let me have this. That's kind of psycho. Okay, you say psycho too much. Stop saying psycho. [Music] To hear more original stories like this, go to the truthpodcast.com. You can also follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Our handle is the truth fiction. He was written by Murray MacDonald and produced by me Jonathan Mitchell. He was performed by James Dwyer, Aaron Bartley, John Trollbridge, McKenna Miller, Sadie Mitchell, and Sherry McMaster as the voice of the instruction manual. Our associate producer is Kaden Spandabara. I'm Jonathan Mitchell and you have been hearing. The truth.